In terms of disseminating information onsite at your organization’s conference, how are you currently doing it? Do you give people printed handouts and booklets when they check in at registration? Do you have a conference app where those materials are housed, but also have printed versions onsite? Do you rely exclusively on a conference app, cutting out printed materials altogether?

On January 24, the Events Industry Council, comprising more than 30 member organizations within the meetings and events business, unveiled four principles designed to guide and motivate event organizers worldwide to embrace and implement sustainable practices in their work. These principles can be found on a new page within the Sustainability section of EIC's web site.

Executives often say they want to do more about sustainability and climate change, but that it seems impossible. On a personal level, it can feel that way for us all because climate action requires the most complex (and intriguing) of behavioral challenges: to become more proactive; prevent undesired futures; and create better futures.

There’s never been a better time to get started on greening your events. A new year is on the horizon, events are being reinvented to be more experiential, new events are starting up and hope is in the air. So, what’s stopping you? Like any good resolution, the hardest part is getting started, so let us give you some ideas.

More than a decade after the launch of the Green Meetings Industry Council (GMIC), now the Events Industry Council Sustainability Initiative, we’re still trying to make our events more environmentally friendly. One area where it’s easy to make a difference is food waste, or the reduction thereof.

When it comes to environmental impact, there is no getting around the rather large footprint the meetings industry has left behind in the past. Add to that the fact that we have been talking about how to throw green events for years, and you’d be forgiven for feeling a little overwhelmed with the ever-growing sustainability checklist. But making your events eco-friendlier is easier now than ever before.

This fall, Salt Lake City’s Salt Palace Convention Center installed a stunning 20-foot-tall mosaic depicting Martha “Mattie” Hughes Cannon, the first female State Senator elected in the U.S. in 1896. While Cannon’s tale is truly remarkable—she was a physician, a suffragist, and defeated her own husband to win the state senate seat—the origin of the artwork is a story in itself.

Sustainable art is making an impact at events, showing thoughtfulness behind a sustainable approach. See how MCI UK did it for Quiksilver. Today, brands and event professionals are using toxic materials that are slowly polluting our planet as clever forms of art to make a point about what it means to be sustainable.

The city of Surabaya in Indonesia launched an initiative this year to let residents purchase bus tickets with recycled plastic bottles. Five plastic bottles or ten plastic cups can be exchanged for a two-hour bus pass. As of this month, data shows that a single bus can remove up to 250 kg (550 lbs) of plastic waste per day. Surabaya aims to help reduce the amount of plastic in Indonesia, which is said to be the second-largest contributor to ocean plastic in the world, and become plastic-free by 2020.

The key to success in producing a more sustainable event is to enroll significant vendors. According to the Center for Sustainability Excellence, “Supply chain management is vital. 20% of the suppliers will determine 80% of a company’s environmental impact.” This is true of events as well. Sustainability is a collaborative effort and you can’t do it alone. It takes the passion, commitment and expertise of many organizations and individuals. The bottom line is…without your foremost partners you simply won’t be as successful. By using a step-by-step process, the task isn’t as daunting as might be imagined.

Large venues and events tend to generate an unnecessarily large amount of waste in a short period of time. This is not only expensive but also harmful to the environment. Reducing the amount of waste generated at your events can improve your profits by making use of possible tax deductions that you can get for donating items. You can reduce the amount of waste that you generate by reducing, reusing and recycling the waste generated as much as possible.

Your attendees aren’t just noticing your event’s main attractions. They’re also observing how sustainable and eco-friendly your event is. And if your trash cans are overflowing with water bottles, for example, it could leave a bad impression on your green-leaning guests.

Creating sustainable events is hard work, and includes a variety of different challenges — not the least of which is managing food waste or maintaining active group involvement. But what about getting the commitment from management just to get started?

The term sustainability strategy refers to any measurable objective aiming at optimising (reduce environmental impact and cost), innovating to improve participant experience, engaging organisations and attendees to change behaviour and leave positive social impact and finally communicating sustainability initiatives while building brand reputation.

Every year, $165 billion of food is wasted in the United States; while at the same time, many families go hungry. Two events industry experts, Courtney Lohmann, CMP, director of culture at Koncept Events, and Mariela McIlwraith, CMP, CMM, MBA, director, industry advancement at the Events Industry Council, participated in a recent MeetingsNet webinar on reducing food waste in the meetings industry. Lohmann and McIlwraith focused on two strategies, reducing the amount of food that is wasted at an event, and using any extra food in a planet-friendly way.

Spring and summer are synonymous with event season. Whether it be conferences, concerts, community events or festivals, chances are we are all heading to at least one in the next few months. In honor of Earth Month, now is a great time to reflect for a moment on impacts these events are having on the environment; particularly in the area of single-use plastics, which given their prevalence in event settings as well as their difficulty to recycle & break down, present a unique challenge to attendee, venue, and planner alike.

Over the past decade, the term sustainability has caught on in event venues, meeting rooms and office environments. A growing number of associations and corporations are integrating sustainability into their operations including their events, and although some might argue that the concept has reached the mainstream, there are plenty of opportunities abound for implementation.

One of the key components of producing a sustainable event is transportation to the event itself. Too often this important factor is overlooked or, in the case of air travel, ignored like the elephant in the room. We will leave air travel for a subsequent blog and today focus on ground transportation. Savvy event hosts know the importance of selecting a destination with mass transit from the airport to the meeting venue and to accommodations.

In this post, we share a variety of green meeting ideas and walk you through how you can create green policies to further your sustainable reach. Plus, we are going to show you how to do it in a way that keeps costs down and actually save money through your sustainable efforts. Above all, we promise not to use jargon or bamboozle you with science that busy eventprofs simply don’t have time for.

The new year is looking brighter. Big event venues such as Mandalay Bay and Palm Springs convention centers have upgraded to green-energy sources, a change that will benefit not just the environment but business, too. According to this year’s SITE report, sustainability and green initiatives have become very important. Ninety-four percent of corporate clients said a top trend that’s having a positive impact on incentive travel is programs that show they are trying to do something positive. This trend is so important the IMEX Group, along with the Event Industry Council (EIC), are calling attention to it with the coveted Innovation in Sustainability Award.

The concept of “sustainable” and “green” events is not new. Over the years, we have seen a shift towards making events more eco-friendly. This has been most noticeable with more hotels and convention centers coming up with detailed eco-friendly initiatives. With venues stepping up to the plate, planners and producers (myself included) need to do our part to prioritize sustainability.

It's not much of a stretch to assume that most people frequent the local cafe. Maybe this is part of your daily routine or maybe just a weekend tradition. Either way, it's easy for people to fall into a pattern of ordering a coffee drink and throwing out the disposable cup. Let's face it, habits are hard to break. When we're presented with options that feel easy in the moment, it can certainly feel hard to make a change.

If the organizers have their way, that 40 tons of beer cups, burger wrappers, and nacho trays getting tossed at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis during Super Bowl LII will not end up in a landfill. According to an article in Fast Company, the NFL, the stadium, the Minnesota Sports Authority, sponsor PepsiCo, and the familiar-to-meeting-planners food-service company Aramark, are teaming up to recycle or compost about 90 percent of all that garbage, and dispose of the remaining non-recyclables in a local waste-to-energy incinerator.

It’s January and everyone is trying to make wise food choices for themselves and those they care about. Events are no exception. If you are responsible for selecting the food for your event guests, you know how complex it can be in today’s world. Allergies, dietary preferences, local experiences, budgets and current trends all impact your decisions. Do you know your food choices also affect your event’s environmental impact?

Events are known for causing a big strain on society and on the environment, as they stress local resources and generate a lot of waste which is a big environmental issue – especially if this waste is land-filled! Since many aspects go into organising an event, here are our top tips on 3 main areas for successfully organising high performance sustainable events.

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